Mr. Speaker, the government tabled its 2018 budget yesterday, and we are sad to say that this year's exercise appears to be another missed opportunity to build an economy that would benefit all Canadians.
Budget 2018 is another missed opportunity to build an economy that lifts everyone up.
The government is perpetuating two realities in Canada: one for the ultra rich, the powerful, the friends of government; the other for everyone else. A budget is not an opportunity to show that we have identified problems; it is an opportunity to address problems, to propose concrete solutions that will change things for the better, and to use our taxes for the common good, that is for the good of ordinary Canadians who are at work, at home, or on the streets. That is the role of government. Unfortunately, this government has again chosen to favour the privileged and to let everyone else wait.
A budget is an annual exercise to ensure that Canada's economy works for people first, not just the wealthy and the well-connected. The inequality gap between Canada's wealthiest and the rest of Canadians has never been greater in our country. This is unacceptable.
When the Prime Minister told Sears' retirees to get used to EI and CPP after their pensions were stolen, he told all Canadians that they should get used to inequality. However, we will not get used to it, not while so many people do not have what they need.
Today, two Canadian billionaire businessmen own as much wealth as 11 million Canadians altogether. At the same time, more than four million people live with food insecurity, including 1.15 million children here in Canada.
Too many people believe the economy is not working for them. What they see instead is an uneven playing field where only the few at the top benefit at the expense of everyone else.
With all that has been said and written, in this place and elsewhere, about tax havens and the billions of dollars being channelled everywhere but into our pockets, we would have wanted the Government of Canada to lead the charge. We want Canada to champion the fight against tax inequality, but that is not what we see in this budget. This is a missed opportunity.
Let us talk a little about tax havens. For several months, we have been going after the government on the issue of tax havens. The only thing the government has said about this issue is that it has spent $1 billion in the hopes of potentially recovering $25 billion. In actual fact, is has only spent $40 million to date, not $1 billion. It will by no means reach the $25-billion target. The government is trying to make us believe that it is tackling income inequality, but it is protecting tax havens.
When the Minister of National Revenue and the Prime Minister give us the statistics on how many investigations have been launched and how many millions of dollars have been recovered, we have to consider that the victims of the government's scheme are not the KPMGs or the wealthy of this world, but everyday taxpayers. People from Quebec involved in the fight against tax havens tried to meet with government officials to share their concerns. They learned that the Canada Revenue Agency is using a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether to enforce the law or not. The law is in place and should be enforced equally for everyone. The Liberals tell us they have taxpayers' interests at heart and that they are dealing with tax havens, but these examples are far from reassuring.
Worse yet, despite the fact that the Liberals say that they want to combat tax havens, they keep signing treaties with tax havens. Tax treaties open the door to allowing Canadian investors to send their money offshore and then bring it back without paying taxes. That is what the government is facilitating. The Liberal government is talking out of both sides of its mouth. We really have to pay attention to what the Liberals are doing and not to what they are saying.
The Liberals refuse to deal with the matter of inequality when it comes to the way taxes are imposed, the way businesses are asked to impose sales tax. Canadian companies are required to charge sales tax on products and services. However, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, and Google are not required to do these same. Why is the Government of Canada insisting on giving American companies a competitive advantage of 12% to 15% right off the bat? It makes no sense. The government should ensure that Canada's tax laws apply to everyone.
Speaking of equality, we also need to look at regional inequalities. For example, the current government, like the previous government, has not done anything to resolve high-speed Internet and especially cellphone service issues in the regions. Investments have been made to increase access to high-speed Internet, but they are too slow in coming. There is nothing in this budget except vague promises regarding satellite capacity. Still today, too many regions do not have access to cellphone service. The government is taking advantage of the opportunity presented by the G7 conference that will be held in Charlevoix to provide that region with the appropriate infrastructure, but there is nothing in the budget for other regions. That is a rather cynical approach.
The funding announced for water and waste water infrastructure in first nations communities is almost $2 billion short of the government's conservative estimate of what is required to end all drinking water advisories and to have adequate infrastructure in those communities.
We are glad to see funding for indigenous-specific housing strategies, but the specific details have not been announced, even after years of delay. The housing needs are urgent, and indigenous peoples cannot afford to wait.
We are glad to see funding for first nations child and family services, but with the government's refusal to disclose the funding gap, there is no way to tell if this funding is sufficient.
Indigenous housing needs are specific, and crisis shelters in the north are needed. Funding often goes only to on-reserve shelters, which addresses only part of the demand of indigenous women experiencing violence.
There is nothing in the budget that removes the funding cap for the post-secondary student support program for indigenous students, and that constitutes a barrier to education opportunities for indigenous peoples.
There is also nothing in the budget on the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, whether it be to ensure that it is fully resourced or to respond to some of the recommendations that were issued thus far in the interim report.
Let me read a quote:
We will work with our provincial partners to ensure that all Canadians have access to medically necessary drugs within the public health care system. The federal government has a role to play in bringing together its provincial and territorial partners and a range of other interests to develop a national plan and timetable for introducing prescription drugs into our medicare system.
Was that in the budget? No, it was not. It was in the Liberal platform of 1997. Eleven years later, Canadians are cutting up pills. They are behind on bills. They are dipping into their savings and credit cards to afford the medication they need.
When it comes to the health of Canadians, the Liberal government has let people down year after year. What was the finance minister's response yesterday? It was four more years of pharmacare studies. These studies will be led by someone who is on the record as saying that pharmacare has been studied to death.
The government has already spent two years studying how to implement pharmacare, thanks to the bill introduced by my colleague, the member for Vancouver Kingsway. The consultation has been done. The government knows how much it would save Canadians. All that is lacking is the courage to implement it.
Less than 24 hours after this budget was tabled, the finance minister was already backtracking on the promise to introduce universal pharmacare. He is already musing about a public-private mix, which was strongly advised against by expert witnesses at the health committee. Are Canadians supposed to believe that the Prime Minister is serious about implementing pharmacare, when the budget allocates no money to funding it and his finance minister is already talking about imposing limits on the coverage?
A diagnosis should not be a death sentence. Canadians cannot afford any more delays when it comes to making prescription drugs more affordable. The time to study pharmacare is over. The time to implement universal pharmacare for all Canadians is now.
The Liberals announced a legislative framework to ensure pay equity, but they did not allocate any money to implement it. Why then did they spend so much time presenting that legislation?
Let us not forget that the Liberals were already talking about pay equity in 2016 and 2017. In 2018, they promised legislation. Women have already waited too long. The government needs to immediately implement a strategy to encourage all of the provinces and territories to also adopt measures to ensure that businesses under their jurisdiction achieve pay equity. We still welcome its pay equity measures, as long as the government keeps its word this time.
This is a timid budget that is big on symbolism but short on substance and specifics.
In 2017, the opioid crisis claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 people in Canada. The President of the United States has declared a national public health emergency to provide communities with the tools they need to address this major crisis. What is the Prime Minister waiting for?
On this side of the border, the $231 million over five years is welcome, but it is almost $100 million less than the $320 million over three years announced by the provincial government of British Columbia. This is an urgent crisis of unprecedented scale. It is crucial to provide front-line workers with the funding they need to do their jobs.
On the climate change file, the federal government is moving backwards. The weak measures it has put forward do not reflect the urgency of the situation. Furthermore, 90% of the promised funding will not be invested until after the next election, which is a recurring theme in this budget. If the government really wants to focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it needs to step up its efforts now.
After promising in 2015 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, the Liberals did not even address the issue in this budget. Getting rid of fossil fuel subsidies would save the government $1.3 billion a year. If the government continues to increase the production of greenhouse gases and approve projects like Kinder Morgan, for example, it will never meet its Paris Agreement commitments.
Nine months ago, on May 26, 2017, the Minister of Transport put out a news release saying that he would announce a national strategy on electric vehicles by 2018. I must inform the government and the Minister of Transport that it is 2018. Not only are we still waiting for the strategy, but yesterday's budget said nothing about moving forward and contained no subsidies for the purchase of electric vehicles. The federal budget is yet another missed opportunity to take real action against climate change.
We do welcome the new investments to support rental construction that were announced. However, let us be clear. This does not refer to social housing. According to figures from the last census, nearly 796,000 Canadian renter households spend more than half their income on housing. Their median income is $14,900—yes, you heard me, $14,900. The housing crisis needs to be resolved now, not after the election. These people are languishing on waiting lists, but from the looks of this budget, the Liberals are in no hurry to invest in a solution.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities stated that this budget “missed a key opportunity to generate frontline outcomes by expediting repairs to Canada's social housing supply to kick-start the National Housing Strategy.”
Canadians, pushed to the edge of their finances by skyrocketing housing costs, cannot afford for the Liberals to play politics with this funding.
How many times have we talked about the urgent need for the government to protect print media, a pillar of our democracy? In response to the possibility of a number of our print media outlets shuttering because of current financial difficulties, the Minister of Canadian Heritage led us to believe that she would take vigorous and decisive action on this file.
Newspapers' advertising revenue, much of which coming from the government, has plummeted, with that money now flowing to online media, yet the minister is putting up $50 million over five years, which is $10 million per year, to support local journalism in underserved communities. Over the past two years, some 15,000 journalism jobs have disappeared, but the best she can do is a band-aid solution.
Employment insurance benefits will be drying up for many seasonal workers in the coming weeks. For years now, they have been trying to figure out how to get around the spring gap. Once again, the Liberals are refusing to solve the problem even though there is a simple and obvious solution. Since 1971, people who get sick have been able to claim 15 weeks of employment insurance benefits at 55% of their usual income. The Liberals promised to increase the number of weeks for which sick people can collect employment insurance benefits, but there is nothing about that in this budget. Everyone knows that, for most Canadians, 15 weeks of disability benefits is not enough.
There is nothing in the 2018 budget to prevent a company like Sears from putting its shareholders and preferred creditors ahead of its workers' benefits and pension plans. The Prime Minister seems to think that our flawed employment insurance system is good enough to protect workers and retirees from pension theft, but those of us on this side of the House know it is not enough, and here I should mention my colleague from Hamilton Mountain's work on that front.
Budget 2018 lacks courage. The government is still scared to stand up to its friends, the richest 1%, who profit from an unfair tax system. Were it to tackle the tax breaks used by Canada's wealthiest, the government could redistribute the money to those who need it the most. At a time of emergencies and crises, the government is rolling out delay tactics: delays on housing, delays on pharmacare, and delays on infrastructure spending. All this is despite adding $7 billion to the promised deficit.
Canadians must be wondering what they are getting for their money. Families that cannot afford their homes cannot afford delays. Canadians who cannot afford their medication cannot afford delays on pharmacare. Our communities, which depend on publicly owned infrastructure, cannot wait on federal funding to start construction.
This government is obsessed with studies. At some point, we need to leave the studies behind and find the courage to do what we have to do in order to give Canadians what they need to get ahead. This budget does not do that.
Now is not the time to be timid. Now is the time to take bold and courageous action to reduce inequality. We can do that by closing the tax loopholes exploited by the ultra-rich and using that money for public services that everyone can benefit from, like affordable, universal child care and universal pharmacare now, or by applying GST to web giants like Netflix, because the current arrangement creates an unfair playing field for Canadian businesses trying to compete with foreign companies.
Ultimately, we do not sit in the House of Commons for ourselves. We sit in the House of Commons for the people who are not here. We are working for them.
We are working for people who are not in the House of Commons, to make sure they can live a better life, dream bigger, and build a better future for themselves, for their children, and for their grandchildren. This budget puts those dreams on hold for too many.
That is why I would like to move a subamendment. I move that the amendment be amended by deleting all the words after the words “because it” and substituting the following:
(a) does not adequately address tax havens and tax loopholes that benefit the rich;
(b) does not provide any funding for the immediate establishment of a universal pharmacare system;
(c) does not immediately address the nationwide housing crisis; and
(d) does not provide the necessary funding to eliminate long-term boil water advisories and upgrade water and wastewater infrastructure in Indigenous communities by 2020.
